SpaceX Starship Flight 13: V3 Debut and Starlink Satellite Deployment
SpaceX Starship Flight 13 livestream [video]
SpaceX is preparing for the thirteenth Starship flight test, featuring the debut of the V3 vehicles and the first deployment of Starlink V3 satellites. This mission aims to address previous hardware issues with engine relights and directional flips while testing new heat shield technologies. The booster will attempt a controlled landing in the Gulf of America, and the upper stage will deploy twenty satellites to validate laser connectivity and heat shield performance before reentry.
Excitement guaranteed.
- modeless
Successful Raptor on-orbit relight demo! That should clear the next flight to go to orbit and deploy operational satellites! Big milestone for the program.
And the ship landing was so soft it didn't even explode! That's never happened before. And it's still connected to Starlink too. The ship's cameras are still working underwater! I wonder if they will be able to recover it intact?
We're getting some great views of the heat shield post-reentry. That's great data for the heat shield team. The heat shield is the biggest remaining question mark in the whole program. Reflight without heat shield refurbishment will be required for the whole architecture to work, and it's never been done before. None of the heat shields so far looked reusable without refurbishment, including this one.
Edit: Spashdown video https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2080804682918764619
- staplung
Summary: almost, but not quite entirely successful.
Launch successful. Booster separation and boost back burn looked good. Booster failed to relight some of its engines and hit the water hard. Successfully deployed the 20 starlink satellites. Successfully reignited an engine in flight to prove potential for de-orbit burn on future flight. Re-entry looked good and less spicy that some previous attempts (subjective). Such a soft landing that the ship flopped into the water without exploding and floated for a good long while (possibly still floating for all I know). Got some great drone footage flying over the heat-shield.
So the ship itself is looking increasingly good (so far) but they still seem to be having some issues with the booster.
- appplication
It’s interesting the cognitive dissonance this brings out in me. As much as I think Musk carries a fairly reprehensible aura, I would still like to see SpaceX succeed. Space has a funny, transcendent way of inspiring us.
- ACCount37
Starship landed in the ocean intact and only slightly on fire!
- fsloth
Whoa the acceleration from the start surprised me. It’s huge and it just … zipped off the pad like a bullet (ok not real bullet but still).
- georgeburdell
Seems like the booster landing burn did not light all the engines and so it crashed into the water.
- s08148692
Real time reentry plasma field will never get old. Amazing
- andsoitis
You can also track the progress in text: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/24/science/live-news/spacex-star...